


You Don’t Get Older, You Get Better

by Dragongoddess13



Series: I had a Fear of Being Alone [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Birthday Party, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 13:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4831169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragongoddess13/pseuds/Dragongoddess13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story 4</p><p>Jane Foster is a fierce older sister/Best Friend and Darcy loves her for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don’t Get Older, You Get Better

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! Another installment. This was just meant to be a bit of fluff with a tiny bit of background for Darcy to set the stage for a future story I'm planning. 
> 
> This takes place before the island, but after the WSC council.
> 
> The Story title is a quote by Shirley Bassey
> 
> Edit: Bonus points for anyone who gets the screw the rules reference.

You Don’t Get Older, You Get Better

Story 4

xXx

“I can count the number of close friends I have on one hand, Darcy. You’re on the top of that list. I mean I’ve told you things I haven’t told my own mother.” Jane explained surprisingly serious for how wasted she clearly was.

“Awe thanks Janey. I love you too.” Truth be told, Darcy wasn’t fairing much better with her own sobriety. It was Friday night though and she had the weekend off for once so screw the rules they had cheap tequila.

“I was really angry when you left me for S.H.I.E.L.D. but then I realized that even though I missed you that you were wasting your talents getting me coffee and collating data and I knew… I just knew that you would be so good as an agent.” Jane was getting weepy, which was a good indication she was reaching her limit. “And you know what?” she continued, pointing a long slender finger at Darcy. “I was right.”

Darcy was touched, she really was, but Jane was looking a little green around the edges now and Darcy, having been through this before, thank you Thor, knew what was coming. “It’s always good to hear the people you care about believe in you.” She replied, putting some money on the table for the tab and helping Jane up out of her seat. Jane didn’t argue; just let Darcy lead her outside, pouring her into a cab and then helping her up to her hotel room down town.

They found Thor as they made their way through the front door and Darcy knew Jane was in capable hands. She brushed off Thor’s offer to their couch with a polite no thank you and made her way home to her small studio apartment just across the bridge from Arlington National Cemetery.

xXx

There was someone in her kitchen. That was the first thing she realized as sleep left her the next morning. Normally this would be cause for alarm, but given the massive hangover pounding against the inside of her skull, she just couldn’t bring herself to move. Lucky for her one of the intruders walked in moments later with a glass of water and a couple of pain killers.

“Jack?” she groaned rolling away from the light coming through the window.

“Rise and shine sleeping beauty.” He teased. She flipped him off.

“Now, now Boss is that anyway to greet the guy with the pain pills?” she huffed.

“Well I’d punch you but moving doesn’t seem to be on the agenda today.” Rollins chuckled and set the glass on the night stand along with the pills. “What are you doing here anyway?” she complained as he helped her to sit up before pushing the glass into on hand and pills in the other.

“Coulson talked to Thor at HQ today after the Avengers meeting and apparently Thor asked if he’d spoken to you and if so, were you alright.” He paused to take the glass back. “So of course that led to a conversation about you bringing Foster back to the hotel totally smashed and you were only slightly better.”

“And Coulson asked you to check on me?”

“Got it in one.” Rollins replied. “Brock’s makin’ breakfast if you think you can handle it.” She nodded slightly.

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

When Rollins was gone Darcy pulled herself out of bed and walked into the bathroom to run a brush through her hair and over her teeth. When that was finished she padded out into the main apartment where she found Rollins sitting at the breakfast bar and Rumlow scooping greasy scrambled eggs onto a few plates along with bacon and dry toast. She scuffled up to the stool beside Rollins and climbed up onto it. She groaned as she settled, fingers rubbing at her temples to relieve the pain in her eyes.

“Must’ve been some party, Boss.” Rollins teased as Rumlow set two plates in front of them. She groaned again.

“Tequila?” Rumlow asked. She nodded.

“Cheap tequila.” Both men grimaced.

“You, sweetheart, need better taste in alcohol.” Rumlow told her stepping back and leaning against the counter, plate in hand. She shrugged.

“Booze is booze dude.”

Rollins chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth?”

Rumlow shook his head at them, turning back to his breakfast. They quickly and quietly ate and when they were done Rumlow gathered up the plates and set to work cleaning.

At some point a knock sounded at the door and Darcy grumbled in protest at the thought of having to get up. Rollins, taking pity on her, got up and answered it for her, finding Jane and Thor out in the hall and quite frankly looking none too pleased for reasons he didn’t want to think about.

“Doc?”

“Where is she?” Jane questioned arms crossed. Behind her Thor stood looking just as baffled.

“In the kitchen.” He replied stepping aside as Jane powered forward. He looked to Thor as she passed.

“I apologize agent Rollins; I do not know why Jane has become so determined.”

“No problem.” Rollins replied shutting the door behind Thor and following the bigger man into the kitchen. As they crossed the threshold they found Rumlow watching the two women amused.

“What the hell if your damage Jane?” Darcy complained, hand cradling her forehead.

“You cut me off last night.”

“What are you talking about? Your drunken ramblings about how much you appreciate me?”

“Yes!” Jane exclaimed. Darcy flinched, her hands covering her ears. Clearly the pain meds hadn’t kicked in yet. “I was leading up to something and you threw me off with your sudden need to get home.”

“My sudden need?” Darcy immediately regretted moving so quickly. “You were literally turning green. You were either about to Hulk out on me or throw up. Either way I was going to have to deal with it. It seemed like a good idea to get you out of there.”

“Oh,” Jane replied deflating a bit. “Well…okay.”

“You can tell her now.” Rumlow suggested. Darcy glared.

“Don’t encourage her.” she told him. “Nothing good ever comes from Jane having ideas P.T.”

“P.T?” Rollins questioned.

“Post Thor.” Said demi God explained.

“Seriously though, let me tell you how this goes. Jane has an idea, we carry out Jane’s idea, and I get shot at by aliens.”

“Oh it’s not that bad.” Jane defended. Darcy just gave her, her best unimpressed glare. Rumlow was fairly certain she’d learned that from Romanov.

“It has nothing to do with Science! I promise.” Jane shook off Darcy’s glare. Darcy sighed.

“Fine, what do you want?” Jane huffed rolling her eyes.

“What I was trying to say last night was that Eric and I were talking and it occurred to us that for the four years we were all together we never once celebrated your birthday.” Jane seemed truly upset by this fact. “I mean we don’t even know when it is. How can I not know my best friend’s birthday.”

“Well that makes three of us.” They all looked to her confused.

“What do you mean?” Rollins spoke up. She shrugged nonchalant

“I don’t know when my birthday is either.”

“I do not understand my friend.” Thor began sounding truly saddened by this revelation. “How do you not know such an important occasion?”

“Um… well… not long after I was born I was left at the front desk of Child Protective Services. No birth certificate and it was a small town office so no security cameras. They had to guess when my birthday was for the certificate.”

“So what’s your new birthday?” Rumlow asked. Darcy seemed to think about it for a minute.

“I don’t remember.”

“Darcy!” Jane exclaimed.

“What!”

“How do you not remember?”

“I don’t want to say.” Darcy explained quietly.

“Why not?” Jane’s voice grew significantly softer.

“Because it’ll upset you.”

“Oh, Darce, you know you can tell me anything.”

“I know it’s just… I uh, I’ve never celebrated my birthday before. At least not that I remember.” Jane looked like she was about to protest so Darcy cut her off. “It’s really not a big deal okay. Most of the families I lived with weren’t really the kind of people you wanted to celebrate your birthday with.” That really didn’t help her argument and despite the fact that Jane dropped the subject she knew it wasn’t over.

xXx

Darcy found herself and her team in New York a month later for a debriefing at Avengers tower. The debriefing had been routine enough and when all was said and done her team had the weekend to use as they so choose. They all decided to stay in New York for a few days to just cut loose.

“I don’t see it.” Rollins grumbled squinting across the bar at the young woman playing darts.

“I’m telling you, it’s definitely her.” Agent Carmichael insisted. Agent Joshua Carmichael, 5’8, dark hair, brown eyes and the marksman for STRIKE, had caught sight of said woman twenty minutes earlier. The woman in question no one really knew, but Carmichael insisted she was or at the very least bore a striking resemblance to Danica Patrick. Apparently Carmichael had a bit of a school boy crush on the female racing star.

“There’s something very wrong with you.” Agents Davis told him over the rim of her long neck. Agent Catherine Davis, 5’9. Blonde hair, green eyes, and the team’s field medic was pretty much done with the back and forth. “Either go talk to her or leave her alone, because I doubt she wants you starring at her like a creeper.”

Carmichael visibly deflated, fiddling with his beer bottle. “But what if it’s not her?” he murmured. Davis sighed harshly, dropping her forehead on Darcy’s shoulder beside her. Darcy reached up to pat Davis on the shoulder in comfort.

“Isn’t Danica Patrick married?” Darcy questioned confused. Carmichael shrugged.

“I don’t know, is she?” Davis sat up abruptly.

“Oh for the love of…” she shook her head. “New topic, anyone? Anyone at all?” There was only silence until;

“I thought she was gay.” Rumlow took a swig of his beer.

“Et Tu Rumlow?”

“Si.” He replied with a cheeky smirk. Davis rolled her eyes and turned to Darcy.

“I can’t, I just can’t.”

“I know, I know, just ignore the trolls, they’ll get bored.”

“Not likely.” Rollins teased. Darcy tossed a nacho at him, which he caught and promptly ate, before reaching for her phone, buzzing in her back pocket.

“Everything okay?” Agent Oliver Clement asked (6’0, black hair, brown eyes and the team’s tech specialist).

“Yeah, it’s just Jane.” Darcy replied scrolling through the text. “She and Tony seem to be in another argument.” She continued grabbing her purse off the floor.

“Where are you going? They’re not your responsibility anymore. Let them sort out their own mess.” Rollins told her as she stood, throwing down some money for her tab.

“I know, but it is my responsibility to make sure the world doesn’t end which is, honestly, the only outcome of an argument between those two.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t go alone then.” Carmichael suggested. They all seemed to agree but Darcy knew better.

“You just want to raid Tony’s bar while he’s distracted.”

“That too.”

xXx

Darcy peered out at the darkened common room confused. “Jarvis, why did you stop us here?” When she didn’t get a reply she looked back at her team conveying her concern. Rumlow stepped forward and took her by the elbow leading her out of the lift while keeping her a decent ways behind him. She was aware of Rollins at her back and the rest of the team behind him.

Cautiously, Rumlow led them into the main living space, taking care not to move too quickly. She felt his grip tighten ever so slightly before he pulled her up beside him and stopped walking.

“What’s going on?” She whispered sounding harsh in the stark silence.

“Wait for it.”

A beat later she threw up her arm to shield her eyes from the overhead lights. The ringing chorus of ‘Surprise’ startled her and she looked around at the now illuminated room to find the whole of the Avengers, Coulson, Sitwell and Coulson’s former team. Jane stood in front of them, a wide smile splitting her face.

“What did you do?” Darcy asked shocked. The entire common floor was decorated in party favors for birthdays of all ages. From cute little animals for babies first birthday to comic book characters, and Barbie from the 90’s. There were even gag decorations joking about being “over the hill”.

“Happy Birthday!” Jane replied gesturing around the room. Darcy shook her head walking up to Jane and throwing her arms around the older woman.

“Oh my god, you’re such a sap.” Darcy told her, the smile hard to miss. Jane laughed.

“I try.”

“Hey, she didn’t do this alone you know.” Tony exclaimed. Darcy rolled her eyes as she pulled away and turned to the large gathering of friends.

“Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate all of this.”

She passed some hugs around before everyone went about the party, splitting off between the sitting area, the food table and the various other entertainments scattered about the common floor. Darcy turned accusing eyes on her team then.

“And you.” She began pointing a finger at them. “You were in on this the whole time, weren’t you?” none of them replied, only looking smug. She huffed.

“Just enjoy it boss.” Rollins began, stepping up and throwing an arm around her shoulders. “How many people can say they get to celebrate twenty-eight birthdays all at once?”

“That’s true.” She conceded the point.

“Good, now let’s get you acquainted with some good tequila.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have a deleted scene for this story that I may post in a series of chapters later on


End file.
